The Software Composition Group carries out research in diverse aspects of software evolution. Current research is focussed on Agile Software Analysis: enabling software developers to quickly and effectively analyze complex software systems with the help of tools to rapidly construct, query and manipulate software models.

Prof. Nierstrasz has been passionate about object-oriented programming since the early 1980s, and has been honoured with the prestigious 2013 Dahl-Nygaard Senior Prize for contributions to the field of Object-Orientation. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Object Technology, as Programme Chair of ECOOP ’93, ESEC/FSE ’99 and MoDELS ’06, and as PC member of countless conferences. He is also known as the author of Identify the Champion, a pattern language for managing the peer review process of conferences.